Tribal conference called a ‘significant educational event’

 

PINE RIDGE RESERVATION— No issue matters more to the Lakota than the return of the Black Hills. On every spiritual and historical level, the Black Hills represent the core of Lakota identity and meaning in this modern world. But fifty years ago this was not the case. The history of those tumultuous decades, the Seventies and Eighties, and the transition from wanting monetary compensation for the taking of the Hills, to emphatically declaring they are not for sale, was the subject of a landmark two-day education conference held June 29-30 at Pine Ridge’s Prairie Wind Casino Conference Room.

“There are reasons why our people have not accepted the money,” Oglala Sioux Tribal (OST) President Kevin Killer said in his Letter of Invitation to the conference, “and this conference will help the younger generations to understand the legal history behind the land claims and ongoing dispute with the federal government.”

Deemed by Lakota History consultant Rick Williams a SEE, a Significant Educational Event, the conference provided attendees with an unprecedented insight into the history of the Black Hills Claim and the subsequent Docket 74. The conference was hosted by Chris Eagle Hawk, a longtime respected Pow Wow Master of Ceremonies. Although the Black Hills Claim preceded Docket 74 chronologically, Docket 74 was the subject for day one of the conference. Speaking on the spiritual connection to the land were the Standing Rock Elders Council: Cedric Goodhouse, and John Eagle Shield, Jr. Rick Williams, an enrolled tribal member, and a soft spoken and gifted speaker, addressed the particulars of the 1851 and 1868 treaties. Tribal Attorney Mario Gonzalez, also an enrolled tribal member, spoke on the legal history of Docket 74. Gonzalez represented the Oglala Sioux Tribe to stop payment of the Docket 74, and the previous Black Hills Claim awards. It is not often a conference has in attendance the very man who played the key, elemental role in the making of the history.

On day two the conference focused on the Black Hills Claim. The Standing Rock Elders Council spoke about the preservation of sacred sites. Oglala Lakota College President (OLC) Dawn Franks talked about how the history of Sioux land claims is integrated into the OLC curriculum. Williams again gave the background history and Gonzalez got into the meat and potatoes of the actual legal struggle to stop the payment of the $102 million judgement for the Black Hills.

The aim of the conference was to clear up the many deep misunderstandings and misinformation about the actual history and distinction between the Black Hills Claim and Docket 74. Ralph Case was the original attorney that battled on behalf of the tribes for several decades. In 1955, Arthur Lazarus, Jr., a DC based attorney, took over as lead counsel representing the tribes. At this time, and over the next two decades, the Indian Claims Commission was in existence, and would only consider monetary compensation, not return of any land. On this, the tribes focused, authorizing Lazarus to secure a monetary judgement on their behalf.

Gonzalez, a young OST attorney at the time, discussed with his friend Russell Barsh, that a strategy was needed to stop the payment of the judgement for the Black Hills. Contrary to the rewritten history, in 1980, all of the tribes with the exception of the Oglala wanted the money. Lazarus was their attorney and in his defense the tribes had empowered him to seek monetary compensation on their behalf and he needed compensation for 25 years of legal work. Gonzalez discovered that Lazarus had failed to renew his contract with OST five years earlier and get tribal approval to refile the claim under a new jurisdictional act. Armed with this pretext, Gonzalez filed for an eleventh hour injunction , racing against the clock. because the payout could come at any second. He beat the payout, dated June 22, 1980, by four days. The injunction prevailed, and because OST could not be paid, no funds could be distributed, and after Lazarus took his $10 million dollar cut, the money went into U.S. Treasury bank accounts.

This, however, was just the beginning of the battle for the Black Hills. Gonzalez now devised a plan to create a political environment that would compel Congress to revisit the Black Hills issue. Gonzalez wanted to start some camps, occupy the land, and during that occupation, establish good stewardship of the land. But this plan leaked out and Russell Means scrambled to set up Yellow Thunder Encampment while OST President Stanley Looking Elk set up a similar camp at Wind Cave.

When a government video indicated garbage and car parts strung over oil soaked ground of the Wind Cave camp, the plan to establish good stewardship was destroyed. It was time to try another approach, so Gonzalez drafted what would become the Bradley Bill, sponsored by New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. A 1978 article in the NY times by Wayne King discusses the reasons Bradley sponsored this legislation, but it is filled with factual errors. King does not mention that Gonzalez wrote the original version of the bill. King asserts most of the tribes opposed payment for the Black Hills, when only OST opposed payment. He asserts each tribal member would receive about a million dollars, which is absurd, each would have received about 500 bucks.

Bradley’s bill failed, in a large part because tribal members could not stop fighting with each other.  In 1990, Congressman Matthew Martinez sponsored another bill to return federally held Black Hills lands designated by the treaty, and this also died in committee, and was plagued by the same tribal infighting.

Gonzalez said that his entire effort was to create a political re-posturing that would allow the return of the Black Hills. Despite all the failures of the past forty years, that re-posturing is still in place, and tribes are still in a position to pursue a return strategy since Congress confiscated the Black Hills in 1877.

Surrounding the Great Sioux Reservation created by the 1868 Treaty, are 34  million acres of 1851 Treaty land and non-treaty land, and the battle for this land was separated from the Black Hills Claim and popularly referred to as Docket 74. Although Gonzalez was unable to stop the payment for this land, an additional $40 million was added to the previous Black Hills Claim judgement, and with subsequent interest, over two billion dollars now sits in the bank.

Tribes claim they never wanted the money, but historical documents indicate quite the opposite, and only a few prescient voices spoke up against the money, Gonzalez and the American Indian Movement being the most prominent. Even after the Black Hills Claim award, tribes still wanted the money for Docket 74, except for OST. In arguing against the $40 million judgment in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, Gonzalez sat at one table representing OST, while the attorneys for the other tribes sat at another opposing table arguing for the money.

Whatever the original sentiment regarding the Black Hills and Docket 74, whether tribes wanted money or land, today the overwhelming majority of enrolled tribal members want the return of federal lands in the Black Hills. How this federal land is to be managed would become a serious issue if the Black Hills were returned to tribal control. The nature of all previous failed attempts to secure the return of the Black Hills and the Docket 74 lands, provide a clear historical record of how not to proceed. Tribes can learn from these mistakes.

Within the next few decades, all of the principal people who lived and made the history of the past half century will have passed from the scene. A new generation will have to emerge, armed with accurate knowledge of the issues and events as they actually transpired. At this point, Google searches fail to provide links that accurately report this history. The actual history is also not being taught in our schools. The impact of the SEE conference at Prairie Winds may be to create a paradigm shift to an era of education conferences, that enlighten and empower tribes, as we move into what Gonzalez believes may be the beginning of  a new federal termination era. From 1953-1968, the USA engaged in what is deemed the Termination Era, pursuing policies that relocated tribal members to urban areas and eliminated tribal sovereignty safeguards in many states. The recent Supreme Court Castro-Huerta decision allowing state jurisdiction inside reservation borders in regard to prosecuting criminals signals a return to the same perspective that characterized the Termination Era.

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

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